J.A. Schneider – Her Last Breath is featured in the HBS Author's Spotlight Showcase

The Showcase is a special feature of the Author's Spotlight. It is designed to highlight Spotlight author's NEW releases and their soon to be released novels.

The HBS Author's Spotlight SHOWCASES J.A. Schneider's New Book: Her Last Breath.

Author J.A. Schneider is the author of the cops-&-doctors medical thriller series A Raney & Levine Thriller and the Detective Kerri Blasco series.

Her Last Breath

Detective Kerri Blasco Book 2

Author: J.A. Schneider


AVAILABLE
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A chilling psychological thriller about a woman caught between two men...Mari Gill wakes to horror in a strange apartment next to a murdered man, and can't remember the night before. Accused of murder, she feels torn between her husband, a successful defense attorney, and a mysterious, kind man who wants to help. Can she trust either of them - or even her friends? Detective Kerri Blasco battles her police bosses believing Mari is innocent...but is she?

Excerpt from Her Last Breath Mari Gill’s hand felt sticky.

That was the first thing to trouble her, still clinging to the safe, solid darkness of sleep. Next came pain in her head, a different kind of pain from the other thing, so she squeezed her eyes shut, dreading the day…

…but the stickiness bothered.

Involuntarily, she felt her fingers open and close.

Something was wrong there, in her hand. She squinted open; peered at it.

Red.

Her palm was smeared dark red.

She blinked. Saw more red smear on her forearm, then the torn cap sleeve of last night’s black dress, then the sheet under her arm, stained with…

“Huh?” Her eyes grew wide before her mind processed it.

Thrashing onto her back, Mari saw bloodied sheet reaching halfway up the torn front of her dress, and then saw an arm. A man’s arm, faintly blue and blood-smeared – and with a cry her whole body practically flipped from the bed. “Oh God!”

She hit the floor hard and then scrabbled back up, gaped wildly and saw him. Her shocked vision jumped and saw two then one then two of him on his back, eyes closed, mouth open dribbling caked blood. She froze; gasped. Couldn’t take in air seeing his black hair, his chest hidden under a tent of bloodied sheet.

“Mister?”

A high, involuntary whisper. Mari’s heart rocketed but she felt compelled; jerked out a hand and pulled away the sheet.

Under it a knife, its handle long and black, protruding from his chest.

“Oh God!” Her scream got it out but used up breath as she spun on her knees, recognizing the new trouble. Where was her handbag? What was this place? Who was that guy?

Her bag, her bag…she crawled over hardwood and a man’s flung jacket and hit a cold, metal pole. Something crashed down on her, crashed to the floor but she crawled more, over broken shards with her breath coming harder, wheezing high like a small, dying animal.

Where, where…? She gasped and scrabbled.

There.

Her bag, way under a desk. How could it be under a desk? She was always so careful to keep it close but no time to think, she was upon it, fingers fluttering getting it open, her cries a child’s high mewling as she dug past her phone – no time to call - found her inhaler, got her fingers around it then saw it fly from her and skitter through an open doorway.

“No…”

Wheezing harder she crawled toward it, the little white plastic thing that meant life or death to her. Her chest heaved, and heaved again. Her vision blurred and she couldn’t pull in air. She made it through the door onto a wider floor, was inches away with her hand reaching desperately.

Then her vision darkened and she collapsed, crying; lay her cheek down on the polished cold hardwood. From far away she heard a crash. Her eyes closed. She lay, her fingers stretched futilely toward the inhaler. Her desperate wheezing stopped.

Running feet. Someone’s hands on her, strong hands. “Lady! Omigod, lady!”

From deepest, dying sleep she felt herself raised up; heard a voice, urgent, telling her to breathe, breathe - “Please, lady!”

She felt hard plastic pushed through her lips. Felt the little blast of life, then a man’s warm stubble press his lips on hers. He was breathing her. Two good breaths and then holding her, rocking her.

Her eyes stayed closed as she heard him call 9-1-1…

Author: J.A. Schneider

Author Genre: Mystery & Thrillers, Suspense, Romance

Website: J.A. Schneider… Medical Thrillers & Suspense
Twitter: @JoyceSchneider1
E-Mail: Joyce@jaschneiderauthor.net
Goodreads: Check Out Goodreads
Facebook: Check Out Facebook

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Author Description: J.A. (Joyce Anne) Schneider is a former staffer at Newsweek. Words and story ideas are always teeming in her head - "a colorful place!" she says. She's a wife, mom, and loves thrillers. Once a Liberal Arts major (French and Spanish Literature), she has become increasingly fascinated with medicine and forensic science. Decades of being married to a physician who loves explaining medical concepts and reliving his experiences means that there'll be medical angles even in "regular" thrillers that she writes





Author's Book List
FEAR DREAMS - Detective Kerri Blasco Book 1
A woman frantic she's seeing a ghost... Liddy Barron, an artist, was injured in a hit-and-run accident that left her with recurring nightmares, gaps in her memory, and an increasing obsession in the disappearance of a coed named Sasha Perry. Insecure and nervous, Liddy's turmoil grows as she begins seeing ghostly images. Her husband Paul tries to help but suspects it's just her imagination...while intuitive Detective Kerri Blasco, also obsessed with young Sasha's disappearance, senses that Liddy may have a key to solving the case, and tries to unravel the shocking truth of what really haunts her.


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Amazon



SILVER GIRL - EMBRYO: A Raney & Levine Thriller Book 5
A beautiful young TV star, Jody Merrill, dies mysteriously and police are stumped. They are even more at a loss when the grisly remains of yet another actress, Jody's co-star, are found.

Detectives request the help of doctors Jill Raney and David Levine, police friends and detectives on their own. For Jill and David this is personal; they are heartbroken since both murdered young women were their friends. Furiously they resolve to find the killer: to skirt the law as they always do in cases of sex crimes, child abuse and murder; helping where cops' hands are tied ("No warrant? No problem!"), or in ways that police forensics never imagined.

The killer, capable of unspeakable savagery, must commit more murders in order to hide...possibly behind the glitzy cover of Show Biz Hell. As Jody Merrill called it, "That gorgeous, sparkly bubble that closes you in, bloats your ego in some weird, alternate universe where you lose all bearings, lose yourself. Fame is unhealthy."


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Amazon



CATCH ME - EMBRYO: A Raney & Levine Thriller, Book 4
A terrifying serial killer who just targets couples, and leaves taunting notes for the NYPD signed CATCH ME... At a loss, police request the help of doctors Jill Raney and David Levine, police friends and detectives on their own. Both have helped when cops' hands are tied, or in ways that even police forensics never imagined.

But this killer, a sharp shooter, is always a step ahead. He wears gloves and disguises, shoots victim pairs at random with an unregistered gun, and leaves no physical evidence or eyewitnesses. His only weakness: jealousy to hear that David is also a crack shot, and a creepy interest in the couple's adopted little son, Jesse, almost one year old, dubbed by the media "the miracle baby," and already showing signs that he is as intuitive as his mother...

The killer draws closer, gripping New York City and the entire nation in horror, pulling Jill and David into the worst terror they have yet encountered.


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Amazon



RANEY & LEVINE - EMBRYO: A Raney & Levine Thriller, Book 3
Another doctors-&-cops adrenalin-packed thriller: First, tension enters Jill's & David's relationship over what to do about newborn Jesse. They both love him, but David feels that he'd be safer adopted anonymously. Suddenly their stress turns to horror when they discover that a murderous religious zealot is after both Jesse - whom he calls "devil spawn" - and Jill & David's hospital which he calls "the devil's workshop which must be destroyed!" This time, the whole hospital is threatened... Jill and David join forces with the police in a terrifying race to track down a killer, and to prevent an unthinkable catastrophe.


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Amazon



EMBRYO - EMBRYO: A Raney & Levine Thriller, Book 1
"Maria Moran's first inkling of trouble was the coppery taste in her mouth. It came suddenly, a rushing whoosh of something that made her gag, and when she reached to wipe her mouth, her hand came away smeared with blood."

So begins this first EMBRYO medical thriller about a young intern, Jill Raney, determined to investigate tragedies and terror at a famous fertility and genetic engineering hospital. When two pregnant women die and a fetus is delivered with severe chromosomal abnormalities, Jill's superiors - including handsome, smitten-with-her resident David Levine - insist there's no common link.

But her suspicions deepen with the grotesque murder near the hospital of another pregnant woman - her belly drained of amniotic fluid. And when a woman miscarries in the hospital and then disappears, Jill frantically searches for her - following a terrifying path that seems to link all the victims: Is someone playing with life...and the structures of human life itself?

An unforgettable tale of suspense with a shocking denouement, Embryo takes you deep into the mind of malignant genius.


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Amazon



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